Two Dreams in Fragments

B. Lorraine Smith
8 min readJan 27, 2020
Images: Fragments of a chalk diagram that emerged when I tried to draw the dreams.

For an audio version of this blog post, click here.

My friend Katja asked me to say more about what I think it looks like when my two dreams are realized. That’s fair. After all, working towards those dreams is what I say I do for a living so it seems the least I can do.

How will we get through the climate crisis and allow ecosystems to be restored, species to bounce back? What does a human economy look like when we value what is valuable? These are questions I have been steeping in for some time now.

So, sure I’ll say more, since you asked so nicely, Katja. It will be stream of consciousness though, in mispunctuated fragments lifted from the dreams that come and go in my sleep and some waking moments. Fragments because these are dreams. And because it’s shaping into nothing like what I thought I was looking for so it’s hard to make it recognizable with the twenty-six letters I can recombine in this non-dream form called writing.

Even these partly processed pieces may cause recoil among those who ask for answers, and almost certainly among those who pay for answers by way of advisors and innovators, conferences and workshops. Maybe the recoil will mean it continues to bounce out of the information flows of decision-makers as many similar ideas have done before. (There is nothing new here. I am merely sharing what has been described and discovered countless times before, piecing it together in a way I can fathom.) Or maybe these words will unjam one more log in the river of industrialized knowledge so the truth can move more freely along its course. Either way is fine.

It’s coming in fragments, yes but also in pairs, in counterpoints. A what-it-isn’t versus a what-it-is’ness, a seeking versus having already found, a Dorothy fighting the wind and witch and wizard and then surrendering to what her own tapping heels and voice lead to.

Here follows some of what sparked those dreams.

And then what happens when they come true.

Rethinking our Roman peace with Boudica and Manda Scott

Museums Aren’t Us

What kind of world do we want?

They are in the room

Medium Short: Understanding & Changing

When Online Dating Meets Economic Transformation

“Indigenous Peoples” Are Not a Topic

Does TD Bank Belong in the Future?

Truth Before Reconciliation

B. Lorraine Smith

Recovering ESG "expert"; yarn spinner; distance runner; magical realist. Sensing a path to an economy serving life. also at https://blorrainesmith.substack.com/